Good Day Colleagues:

The Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM), http://www.cedim.de, now has a call for abstracts for its session, “NH9.2 – Forensic Disaster Analyses” for the European GeoSciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2014. The EGU General Assembly will be held in Vienna, Austria, from 27 April to 2 May 2014.

Conveners: Heidi Kreibich, Michael Kunz , Jochen Zschau , Werner Trieselmann

The notion of “Forensic Disaster Investigations” has been coined by the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) initiative. It has been defined as an “approach to studying natural disasters that aims at uncovering the root causes of disasters through in-depth investigations” and that “will help build an understanding of how natural hazards do – or do not – become disasters.” The core of this new style of analysis is to examine disasters using a multidisciplinary framework with a focus on the complex interactions between (1) the natural hazard, (2) the technical installations, facilities, and infrastructures, and (3) the societal structures, institutions and capacities.

For the above session, CEDIM welcomes submissions on event centred research aiming to learn from a disaster for improving risk management and “building back better”. The Center is interested in contributions which cover some of the following aspects: geophysical or atmospheric processes, technological and structural, ecological, sociological, socio-anthropological or economic aspects of all types of damage, preparedness, emergency response, disaster relief and rehabilitation. Also investigations on the effectiveness of existing policy including recommendations for future policy improvements are in the scope of the session. Abstracts are sought from those involved in both the theoretical and practical aspects of the above mentioned or related topics.

CEDIM, with its current research focus on “Forensic Disaster Analyses,” adopts the comprehensive understanding of disasters while incorporating a real-time component to impact assessment, thus complementing the IRDR activities.

Online abstract submission is possible via the EGU homepage, http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2014/session/15646, until 16 January 2014. Applications for travel support can be submitted until the 29th of November.

Kerry-Ann Morris
IRDR Junior Science Officer/FORIN Listserv Moderator